Wanganui Chronicle
John Maslin - 9th February 2010

A challenge by Wanganui Eye Care Trust has seen two new ultrasound machines bought for Whanganui Hospital at a cost of about $50,000 each.

The trust, which continues to be a significant benefactor to the city's health services, offered to buy the high-tech equipment providing the Whanganui District Health Board did the same.

And clinicians have embraced the new equipment.

By sending sound waves into the body mass, and depending on the density of the tissue the ultra sound is aimed at, the equipment creates a picture the doctors can read on a laptop screen.

Surgeon PJ Faumui said the bone created a different picture as did tissue and blood vessels.

"It's non-invasive too, but the beauty of ultrasound is that many procedures that required a detailed knowledge of anatomy and where a vein, a nerve or an artery was sitting, this bypasses a lot of that," Dr Faumui said,

"This will tell you exactly where the vein or artery is that you're looking for and you see it in real time. It makes frontline work so much easier."

The hospital already had one ultra sound that was used by outpatients and the emergency department but the two new ones move between outpatients and the operating theatres.

"When you trying to take a sample of a lump in someone's neck, you are relying on your expertise to get the needle into the right place but with ultra sound you can see exactly where you're putting that needle.

"Before you might have had to do that work in a theatre after giving the patient a general anaesthetic but this cuts out a lot of processes that were required before," Dr Faumui said.

"All that's needed is for the users to be schooled up in how it works."

He said the equipment saved time with something as simple as putting an intravenous line in place.

"Sometimes you spend a lot of time looking for a vein but the ultra sound tracks exactly where the vein is, whether its to the left, the right or hidden behind something.

"It helps take a lot of anxiety away for patients and staff and cuts down on time," Dr Faumui said.

Dr Marco Meijer, an anaesthetist at Whanganui Hospital, said the highly mobile ultra sound was becoming central in anaesthetic practice.

"It has transformed the way we work, and makes our work a lot more efficient and safer," Dr Meijer said.

"You can call up a menu and decide what you want to see. Surgeons use it a lot for thyroids and breast screening as well. Anaesthetists use it more to find nerves, veins or arteries.

"Once you learn to use the machine its functions become quite easy," he said.